An attendee holds up a GoPro camera at the company's booth during the 2014 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S., on Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2014. The CES trade show, which runs until Jan. 10, is the world's largest annual innovation event, offering an array of entrepreneur-focused exhibits, events, and conference sessions for technology entrepreneurs. Photographer: Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg less

An attendee holds up a GoPro camera at the company's booth during the 2014 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S., on Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2014. The CES trade show, which runs until Jan. 10, ... more

Camera maker GoPro, which has helped usher in an age of wearable technology, filed plans Friday to take the big leap into the world of publicly traded companies.

GoPro's IPO filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission comes at a time when the San Mateo company is riding a wave of success from its Hero line of wearable and mountable digital cameras.

Whether mounted on race cars or dogs, GoPro's cameras capture video from a first-person perspective. They've become particularly popular with active sports enthusiasts, from skiers and snowboarders to skydivers and skateboarders. Parents also use them to show off their children.

But analyst Andrew Sheehy of Generator Research said GoPro will need to jump beyond just making cameras to stay ahead of a coming wave of smart glasses and other wearable technology.

GoPro "will need to repackage the product so it can be integrated into ski helmets, ski goggles and sunglasses, plus develop Web software, apps and services to capture and share the content," Sheehy said. "So they need to do a platform and forge deals with others rather than persist with the 'clip on' approach they have."

Details of the initial public offering, such as how many shares will be sold and how much money GoPro hopes to raise, were not immediately available because the company filed its registration papers under a provision of the 2012 JOBS Act designed to make it easier for emerging growth startups to go public.

The provision lets startups with less than $1 billion in revenue file a draft registration for the SEC to review in private. CEO and founder Nicholas Woodman has told Forbes magazine that the company grossed $521 million in 2012 on sales of 2.3 million cameras. The magazine has also named Woodman, 38, one of the top 400 wealthiest Americans, with a net worth of $1.3 billion.

Full filing coming

The full filing will become public a few weeks before the actual IPO. Confidential IPOs became a hot trend last year when companies like Twitter used the process to shield their financial details from public discourse and from competitors' eyes until close to the actual sale of stock.

Woodman acknowledged the company was preparing for an IPO in September at the annual TechCrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco.

"A public offering is something that is important for a company to be prepared for," Woodman said. "It kicks your butt into shape as a business."

One of the questions investors will have of the company will be its future strategy.

$101 billion market

Sheehy, chief analyst at Generator Research, said GoPro has "been instrumental in defining" the category of wearable technology, which he estimates will be a $101 billion market worldwide by 2018.

But GoPro needs to evolve beyond just hardware because competitors are already making moves like selling ski goggles with built-in video cameras, he said.

"Their current path has a major blockage up ahead, although right now it's a great ride," Sheehy said.

One path would be for GoPro to develop its own cloud-based platform to distribute content created by Hero users, maybe with built-in online editing tools, he said.

'Adapt the product'

"They've got the brand, they've got the audience, they just need to adapt the product," Sheehy said.

Part of GoPro's success comes from the free marketing it gets from legions of fans posting their videos on YouTube.

Last month, GoPro also cut a deal with Microsoft to launch a GoPro Channel for the Xbox One home video game console sometime this spring. And in October, the company launched a GoPro Channel on Virgin America flights.

Earlier this week, GoPro named former Qualcomm executive Jack Lazar as its new chief financial officer.